Other devices of this same general category have been disclosed and some of them have been patented by the applicant. Reference is therefore made to the following patents by the applicant, viz., 4,565,025, issued 1/21/86; 4,669,214, issued 6/2/87; and 4,739,575, issued 4/26/88, and to the art cited therein.
The latest of the above patents, namely, No. 4,739,575, shows a C-clamp arrangement. This can be used on a rail of a boat but it is costly to make compared to the present invention, it is heavier and therefore more difficult to carry when in the tackle box, and is less versatile because of the fact that its shape prevents it from use in certain cases.
Among prior patents is Ferguson 1,719,695. This, however, would not be satisfactorily attachable to the horizontal rail on the boat. In the first place, the tube is there vertically arranged and must have a special attachment to the boat which is entirely different from that of the present invention. Furthermore, the collars 18 are not adjustable but must be secured in place by the thumb screws 19.
Applicant's prior patent No. 4,669,214, for example, shows a belt which a buckle having a tube fastened to the buckle. This, however, is not an arrangement that would be at all satisfactory for securing the tubular member such as the tubular member 12 of that patent to the horizontal cylindrical rail on a boat. In the first place, the belt itself differs from the present clamp in not being so tightly arranged about the human body as is possible with the present hose clamp. Furthermore, the arrangement of my prior patent provides for an axis of the tubular member that is parallel to the vertical axis of a human body. In the present device, the axis of the tubular member is transverse to the rail of the boat.
Goldberg's Marine advertisement shown in its 1978 Discount Accessory Catalog shows a number of different kinds of tubular receptacles that are attachable to boats for holding fishing rods or the like. None of these has a tubular receptacle that is attached by a hose clamp or the like, and in all of them the attachments are apparently for attaching the tubes vertically to the sides of a boat rather than to a horizontally-disposed tubular receptacle.
The present invention thus accomplishes an important utility with maximum simplicity and minimum cost. It does not require special knowledge or special equipment of the type of Ferguson, or of the devices shown in the Goldberg Marine Catalog. It has the great virtue of simplicity because the operation and mounting and adjustment of the hose clamp is very well known. It is inexpensive and it is light in weight, so that when it is not in use, it can be in a tackle box without taking up any great room or requiring any significant addition to weight.